


The Morning After

by MaxWrite



Series: Bendt Series [3]
Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaxWrite/pseuds/MaxWrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after the botched mission, Ethan and Jane stumble upon a commiseration party they weren't invited to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> Third in the [Bendt Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/23729), but takes place between the first and second fics. Yes, I realize this is nearly a year overdue. Oops.

"He's tougher than you think, Jane."

"That doesn't mean you need to lay into him about this. He must feel bad enough."

"I'm hard on him because I know what he's capable of. So do you; you _chose_ him for your own team before we'd even met. Coddling him isn't doing him any favors and you know it."

"Sometimes it just seems like he annoys you."

"Well, sometimes he does. Sometimes you all do."

"That's sweet," Jane said dryly as she and Ethan walked side by side down a corridor of the low-rent apartment building where they'd temporarily set up shop for their current mission. "I know mistakes can be the difference between life and death, but we all have to work together. Let's at least try to be supportive."

Ethan stopped at Benji and Will's apartment door and turned to Jane. "I'm supportive," he said, opening the box of donuts he was carrying and picking up a Boston Cream. "Look, see? Benji's favorite. You never get Boston Creams for Benji."

"Donuts are your idea, not mine. Besides, favorite donuts is an easy thing to remember. Easier than, say, making an actual effort to know someone." Holding the tray of three coffees and a tea in one hand, she removed her sunglasses with the other and said, "Just open the door."

"I'm just saying. Caring about him is one thing. Being protective of him could get him killed."

Ethan fished the keys out of his jeans pocket and unlocked the apartment door. He pushed the door open wide to allow Jane in first and followed behind her.

Her critical eye scanned the space inside with suspicion and she knew Ethan was doing the same. Something felt off. The door clicked shut quietly behind them and Ethan came to stand next to her as they both surveyed the living room.

"What's wrong with this picture?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Too bright in here," she said. "Curtains are already open. They've been closed every single morning that we've come down here. This unit faces the sunrise. Nobody wants that in their face first thing in the morning, least of all Benji, who should have been the one sleeping out here last night if he and Will are still alternating. Those curtains didn't get closed last night."

"What else?"

"Pullout's folded up."

"Like it was never used."

"Maybe Benji's up already. Maybe he opened the curtains before he left."

"Where is he then?"

"Coffee shop?"

"We'd have seen him. Where else?"

Jane looked at him with a line of tension between her brows and shook her head. There was nowhere else Benji could be.

Ethan brought a finger to his lips to indicate they should be quiet from here on out. He nodded at the coffee table and he and Jane set their things down on it. They both drew their guns and began stalking through the apartment, Jane heading for the kitchen first, Ethan for the bathroom. Finding nothing in either, they locked eyes from across the living room and Ethan nodded toward the bedroom. Jane hurried silently toward him on the balls of her feet. She backed him as they approached the partially closed bedroom door at the other end of the short, dark hallway.

Ethan stopped at the door, listened for a moment, then readied himself to kick the door open. He took a breath, shifted his weight, but a second before he could kick in the door, Jane heard something. Breathing. She'd half expected to hear breathing, but this particular breathing made her reach out and touch Ethan's shoulder to stop him. He looked back at her with annoyance. She frowned right back at him, tapped her ear with her fingertip and then pointed at the door. Ethan turned an ear to the door and listened. For a moment he looked perplexed, then annoyed, then resigned _and_ annoyed. He shot Jane a frustrated look as he nodded back toward the other end of the little hallway. The two of them headed back out to the living room.

"You don't think…" he said quietly as they faced each other in the bright space. He kept his gun at the ready.

"What else could it be?"

"Lots of things. Either Benji or Will is in there right now unconscious for starters."

"And the second set of breaths we heard?"

"Our assailant."

"If Benji or Will is in there with some mystery attacker, where's the other one?"

"Maybe taken to a second location by a second man. You said yourself it's possible Benji woke up early, folded up the pullout, opened the curtains and stepped out. We didn't see him. Where did he go?"

"Ethan, just think for a second. Neither breathing pattern we just heard sounded like that of a conscious man. There are two people in that room and they're _both_ out. Which means…" She trailed off and glanced at the unused pullout. She was having trouble believing her own conclusion herself, but it was the simplest answer and likely the truth.

Or maybe she was only half right. The two men sharing the bed for no other reason than their pullout being insufferable was more believable than the conclusion she'd instantly come to. Whatever the truth was, she knew she didn't need her gun anymore. She tucked it away.

Ethan shook his head, still not convinced. "I don't understand."

"Oh, I think you do."

"But…" He finally relaxed too, straightening his posture but keeping his gun clutched in his right hand. "I mean it's fine, I don't care," he said hastily, clearly having come to the same conclusion as Jane. "But… really?"

"Ethan, no attacker would leave the curtains open in broad daylight, not if he was still in the apartment."

"He's hiding."

"And just allowing us to stand out here having this conversation?"

"He doesn't want to be found, he doesn't want a struggle."

"Or?" she challenged him. "The simplest answer, Ethan. Don't complicate this."

Ethan fidgeted, shifted his weight, glanced toward the little hallway, then back to Jane. "Or," he began uncertainly, "Benji and Will shared the bed last night."

"Finally. _Thank_ you. Welcome back."

"But what for?"

"Because the pullout is awful?"

Ethan hesitated, frowning to himself, then he finally said, "I'm not buying it. Even if Benji and Will are suddenly close enough to be comfortable sharing a bed, they wouldn't allow themselves to be found that way. It's not like they didn't know we were coming."

"Suddenly?" She crossed her arms. "You don't even know how close they are, do you?"

"Really not the time for a lecture."

"Want me to go check? If you still have suspicions, we should make sure."

"Yeah… no, wait, I can check."

"Relax, I'll go." At that, Jane stepped away, back around the corner, toward the door. She thought about drawing her gun again but decided against it; she knew what she was about to find. She gave the door a gentle push, which made it creak. She winced, paused, then just went for it, pushed the door open a little further, just far enough to poke her face into the room. It creaked more, but no one inside stirred.

They were cuddled together, the sheets bunched up around their middles, their bare upper bodies and legs exposed. Will had Benji wrapped up protectively in his strong arms and Benji's face was mashed against Will's throat. Both were sleeping soundly, their breathing deep and steady.

Jane backed away and went back out to Ethan, who stood where she'd left him, ready to raise his weapon again. "You can relax," she said.

His shoulders slumped as he lowered the gun to his side. "What's the situation?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are they just sharing the bed for convenience?"

"What difference does that make?"

"A whole hell of a lot of difference." He stepped closer to her, looking serious now. "Jane. Speaking as their friend, I know this is none of our business. But speaking as their teammate, I need to know if they're romantically involved."

He was right, of course, but she didn't feel comfortable telling him what she'd seen. Teammates or not, it didn't feel like her place.

"I can go look myself," he offered. It wasn't a threat. He was offering her an out. She eyed him for a moment, then looked down and nodded. At that, he put his gun back in its holster, stepped away from her and disappeared around the corner. She heard the door creak once, twice. He reappeared. "That's all I needed to know," he said.

She relaxed and nodded. "Come on, we shouldn't be here." She went to the coffee table to retrieve the breakfast things. Ethan seemed to follow at first, but then he went right by her to the pullout and took a seat.

She paused and looked at him. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting," he said simply.

She straightened up again. "For?"

"Them. We've got work to do after all. After what happened last night, we've gotta change our game plan."

"You're just gonna sit there and wait for them to find you?"

"Us. Wait for them to find _us_."

"I'm not staying! And neither are you. We'll go back up to our place and call them to let them know we're coming."

Ethan seemed to consider the idea, then declared, "No. We wait."

She put a hand on her hip. "Why on earth would you want to embarrass them like that?"

"They know we show up here every morning. They know we don't call first. Why would they just leave themselves open to being found like that if it was gonna bother them so much?"

"That's not the point. And I don't know, it was a hectic and stressful night. Clearly things sort of… _progressed_ once they got back here. Maybe they forgot to set their alarm, maybe things got all… frantic last night and –"

"Jane, please," Ethan said with a wince, holding up a hand to silence her.

"I thought you didn't care."

"I don't, I just don't think we should be discussing the details."

"But it's perfectly acceptable to wait out here for them to find us?"

Ethan couldn't keep the little grin off his face as he finally admitted, "I'll be honest, I do think it might be amusing." Jane canted her head, annoyed. He frowned again and shook his head. "I still can't believe they really… I never would've thought…"

"This is exactly why I didn't want you going to look for yourself, because I knew you wouldn't treat the situation with the sensitivity it deserves."

"You don't think I'm glad that they're happy or… if not happy, then… satisfied…" He scrunched up his face and waved a hand as though trying to bat the offending images out of his own mind. "Whatever. I'm happy if they're happy, okay? But secrets cause tension and that's the last thing we need. Giving them the opportunity to come clean will probably be a huge relief to them."

"You say that like you're doing them a favor by invading their privacy."

"Well, _yeah_."

"Ethan," she said, making an effort to speak calmly, "I am not leaving here without you and I am not staying."

Finally convinced, Ethan reluctantly rose from the pullout, grabbed his sunglasses and the donuts and exited the apartment with Jane. In the corridor, on the way back to the elevators, he called Will's phone. Will didn't answer, so Ethan left a voicemail saying he and Jane would be down in twenty minutes.

"That long enough for them, you think?" he asked, still sounding slightly bitter that his plans had been foiled.

"We're calling again in twenty, just to make sure."

Ethan fell silent as they made their way back up to their floor. Jane kept discreetly checking up on him during the short journey. He looked serious and thoughtful. Back inside their own apartment he stashed the box of donuts in the kitchen while she set the drinks down on their small dining table. When he came out, she pretended to be engrossed in the task of pushing back the little flap on the plastic lid of her coffee cup.

"What?" he finally asked, coming to a stop a few feet from her.

She looked at him sidelong, not bothering to feign ignorance. "You okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"We just discovered Benji and Will in bed together."

"You think I'm bothered by two guys getting intimate?"

"No, I think you're bothered by members of _your team_ getting intimate. You're already imagining all the ways this is going to complicate things for us."

Ethan sighed, which in itself seemed like a concession. When he came and took a seat at the table, the frown line disappeared from between his brows and he said with something bordering on affection, "You think you know me so well."

She took a seat too. "I think I've picked up on a few things about you by now."

"So, what are you worried about, that I'm gonna go back down there and stamp out their afterglow?"

"I'd just prefer it if you didn't embarrass them."

"Why do you care so much?"

"I don't know. I guess I just figure that if it were me –"

"If it were you?"

She shot him a stern look. "I'm not saying it ever would be, but I can empathize. If it were me, I wouldn't want my team leader to think I didn't know how to handle the situation discreetly on my own. Can you imagine how mortifying it will be for them if they find out that we saw them?"

"To be fair, they clearly _don't_ know how to handle the situation discreetly. Look, Jane, I know what tact is. What do you think I'm gonna do, go back down there and turn a hose on them?"

"You wanted to stay and wait for them to wake up."

"That was a joke. I won't even talk to both of them, I'll pick one or the other, probably Will since he's less likely to have a panic attack over it, and quietly discuss it with him."

"Why can't you just wait and see what happens?"

"Because we're in the middle of a mission. We, the four of us, hold each other's lives in our hands. Relationships like that change dynamics, they can get people killed."

"How do you know the dynamics have changed? Maybe this is the way it's always been. Maybe this has been going on for a while now without incident. You're assuming it just started, and maybe it did, but you don't know that. They might have been operating just fine as agents, on the same team, while sleeping together this whole time."

"You think that's the case?"

"I have no idea."

Ethan waved a hand impatiently. "It doesn't matter when. Relationships like that need to be disclosed as soon as possible. If it's been going on for a while and they've said nothing about it, that's even worse."

Jane shook her head. "You should let them come to us on their own. There might not even be anything to disclose. What if it's just a one-night stand?"

Ethan frowned. "Never pegged Benji as the type."

Jane smirked. "But you've pegged Will as the type?"

"I… I didn't say that."

Jane canted her head. "What exactly do you know about Benji?"

"This again? I know things about him, Jane."

"What, the kind of pastries he likes?"

"Yeah," Ethan replied indignantly. "And his favorite TV shows."

"We all know that. What else is there to talk about during down time on missions? He babbles when things get too quiet. Because of him I know the story arcs of five shows I've never seen. I'm talking about real things, his family, his friends, his thoughts."

Ethan sat back, defeated. "Fine. But you can't tell me you saw this coming."

"No, I suppose I didn't," she admitted.

He crossed his arms and looked away, toward the living room window. "How do you suppose that got started? Them. How does that even work? Benij's so…"

"Innocent," Jane offered. Benji was far from innocent, but she knew that was what Ethan thought.

"Yeah, and Will's so…"

"Methodical."

"Right, and now they're both…"

They exchanged an awkward glance, then he looked away again and blinked at the daylight in disbelief. "I can't see it. I can't see it happening. There's no logic to it. The two of them somehow maneuvering their way into each other's pants? How? It's not like hacking a firewall or disarming an opponent."

"It's two grown men who both wanted to same thing. It's not rocket science."

"I know that, but neither one of them strikes me as socially adept."

She smiled patiently at him and said, "I'm not sure that would've mattered. Men aren't exactly subtle, Ethan. One of them probably just came right out and said it."

But now she was considering the question herself. What happened in the apartment downstairs last night? She imagined them returning together, Benji dejected about his failure but hiding it behind his humor. Will of course would see right through that and try to comfort his friend by joking with him or assuring him that it hadn't been so bad. Who had thought about it first, about making a move? Who had looked across the room and thought how cute, how handsome, how sexy the other was, how nice it would be to comfort or be comforted? Had their eyes locked and for a moment Will had seen vulnerability on Benji's face? Had Benji seen longing on Will's? Who'd moved first? Had Will been the one to step forth, the look in his eyes undeniable as he'd approached? Had he whispered Benji's name as he'd taken Benji in his arms?

Will hid his passion behind charts and graphs and statistics, but he _was_ passionate. Surely Ethan could see that. Ethan was a good judge of character, surely he could imagine Will making the first move as well as Jane could. And she could see Benji being completely taken aback, disbelieving, even as Will's lips caught his, even as he, Benji, couldn't stop himself from responding in kind, kissing back, gripping Will's strong arms, letting Will have him…

Jane blinked and was back in her and Ethan's apartment feeling slightly too hot. She nudged her coffee away from her and took a deep, quiet breath. She was now wondering where; in the bed? Maybe they'd both been too desperate to even make it that far initially, maybe they'd first fallen down on the pullout. Or… surely Benji had showered after falling into the river last night. Maybe Will had joined him.

She pictured the moment when Benji really gave in, when he became hungry and needy, and following Benji's lead Will had become more aggressive too. She pictured that first touch of bare skin on bare skin, the combination of relief and increased desperation that touch would've brought. She imagined that neither man was terribly quiet, but Benji especially let himself be heard, unable to stop himself as Will did his best to pound the tension out of Benji's body. She imagined Will, almost pained as Benji managed to disarm him without even trying and all his carefully concealed desires came rushing to the surface.

"I think it's nice," she blurted out. She and Ethan looked at each other. "That's why I care so much. That and I think at least one of them probably needed some… comfort after the night we had. I don't know what I saw down there, a relationship or a one-night stand, but I think it's nice. Just let them have it. They'll come clean if and when they need to. They wouldn't let their feelings endanger us. Trust them."

"It's not about what they would or would not let happen, Jane, it's…" But Ethan trailed off, and to her surprise he relented and gave her a somber nod. She now wondered what he'd been thinking while she'd been lost in her own thoughts.

"Just like that?" she asked.

"I trust them. I do. I have to. You're right, I should give them the benefit of the doubt, at least for now. I have to state for the record, though, that I'm against it. Being in love in this line of work?" He shook his head. "Never a good idea."

"You think they're in love?"

Ethan seemed slightly surprised, as if he hadn't been aware he'd used the term 'in love'. "I… I don't know. I think they're a good match, to be honest."

Jane smiled at that.

"Do not _ever_ tell them I said that."

"Said what?" she asked coyly.

He returned her smile, but only briefly. "It's unwise and you know it, Jane. I'm concerned for them."

She examined him quietly and considered all the reasons why he might be so against colleagues being romantically involved. "They're better off than you and Julia were," she said gently. His expression changed subtly, but he didn't look closed off or hurt, so she continued: "I don't mean to poke at that wound, but I know that's what you're thinking about. This isn't the same thing. Julia was a civilian, she always would have been in danger. Will and Benji are both agents. They can both handle themselves."

"True," Ethan admitted. "But still. You know, a wise man I know once said, 'A normal relationship isn't viable for people like us.'"

"Well, I bet that man's awfully lonely. Agents dating agents doesn't qualify as 'normal', anyway. We're better off with each other than anyone else."

Ethan quirked an eyebrow at her.

She rolled her eyes. "I mean, we're all better off with other IMF agents, not just the four of us together. Not the four of us together _at all_."

"I know what you meant. I just like watching you squirm."

She was lamenting the lack of anything close by that was soft and light enough to throw at him when his phone rang. He got it out of his pocket, smirked at the caller ID and then answered, "Good morning, sunshine… Yeah, thought I'd give you a heads-up today… Hey, I can be nice sometimes. How is he? Feeling better?… Good, glad to hear it. Tell him we got his favorite, Boston Cream… No, we did not get any god awful low-fat blueberry muffins. You'll have a bear claw and you'll like it. Okay, we're on our way, so make yourselves decent." He hung up, looked at Jane. "Saddle up."

They rose from the table, got their things and headed out again.

"That was very sweet," Jane said as they exited the apartment, "asking about Benji like that."

"Why's everyone so shocked that I can be nice. I care. I know I don't always show it, but I do."

"One thing, though: 'Make yourselves decent'?"

He grinned as they walked down the corridor together. "I know they don't know that we know. But I gotta rub it in a little bit."

END


End file.
